Review : Toast 8 Titanium

MacNN Rating:

Price: $99.99 US

The Good

Easy to use. Good iLife Integration and improved Bundled Software. Fit to DVD compression works with TiVo. Blu-Ray and Lightscribe Support.

The Bad

Icon view burned discs still come out jumbled, instead of arranged or snapped to a grid. Motion Pictures HD not Universal Binary.

It is rare when a piece of software works so well that its name becomes synonymous with what it does. For example, we have all heard of pictures that look like they were "Photoshopped." Although Toast is very much improved since Roxio became its parent company, it seems that people are slow in warming up to the idea of Toasting CDs. Yet, Toast now gives you so many great features, it is a well-deserved way to refer to your burns.

Your Digital Lifestyle

Roxio Toast 8 does much more than just burn CDs now though. Years ago Steve Jobs spoke about the Macintosh Digital Hub and the Digital Lifestyle, where photos, music, video, and more recently television would use the Mac as a central point to bring it all together. Roxio is following Apple's lead by offering software that enhances and extends the functionality of the Mac OS and iLife applications. Toast 8 offers a range of new innovative features that enable users to see, hear, copy, and enjoy their entire digital lives on a disc and on the go.

Improved Audio CD support

Toast has always been the best disc authoring application on the Mac, but Toast 8 brings a number of unique new features and enhancements that help redefine the standard for disc burning. While Apple has done a pretty good job with the release of iTunes 7, Toast 8 takes it up a notch. It complements the features of iTunes and enables users to apply professional-quality tools to create superior sounding audio CD mixes and music DVDs. Toast 8 adds DJ-style cross-fades and volume normalization tools that allow you to make great sounding compilations or Mix CDs to share with friends. If you have more professional needs, Toast 8 also includes sound enhancing plug-ins, track-trimming capabilities, and other features previously found in Roxio's now-defunct Jam software. Now, you can literally master your CD for professional reproduction and duplication and even embed the UPC information in the disc.

Roxio has redesigned the look of Toast 8 quite a bit, and it has a Leopard-like quality to the interface. It still offers the same drag and drop interface that makes it very easy to use, but gone is the Formats and Media drawer and OS 9-like interface. Audio CD burning seems quicker and the software handles the conversion, such as from MP3 to AIFF, behind the scenes. The files still go to a Roxio Converted Items folder, but in the Preferences are various options to delete or keep the Converted Items for burning future CDs. I also like the new progress window where it shows the songs processed and the time to completion.

Toast Progress Bar, courtesy of Roxio

If you do not own an iPod yet, Toast 8 authors MP3 CDs well, and provides multiple hours of music on a CD or even a DVD disc with the same drag and drop ease. In addition to great sounding audio MP3 CDs, you can create a 50-hour music DVD complete with on-screen menus, shuffle play, and even Dolby Digital sound.

Disc Recovery

A feature I didn't have discs to test is the Disc Recovery option in the Disc Copy section. Toast attempts to recover files with read-errors on damaged and scratched CDs. For someone, like my Editor, who has a multitude of questionable discs from an old SCSI-Yamaha burner, this feature may prove to be a file lifesaver. (The Editor notes that this feature did work on the one disc she tested.) The Copy option also sports a new disc image merge feature.

DVD Support

If DVD watching is your thing, Toast 8 still offers DVD compression that can backup an entire 9GB DVD to a standard 4.7GB DVD disc and "Fit-to-DVDtm compression" that uses all available disc space to maximize video quality. This feature works a bit faster than in Toast 7. Toast 8 still respects the commercial DVD Anti-Copy Protection and will not import them directly. Toast 8 gives you more control over the extracted data including Director's Cut custom compilations, so you can select specific video, audio and languages for your DVD, and also convert DVD content and video files for your iPod, PSP, DivX, or other portable video players. Also included are new and easier to use DVD themes, to give to your DVDs a studio quality look that rivals iDVD, along with the bundled Motion Pictures HD software that makes creating your DVDs much easier than in the past.

Blu-ray Support

Toast 8 takes you into the future with Blu-ray Disc burning support, if you happen to have one of the $600+ burners installed on your Mac. With Blu-ray, you can store as many as 12,500 music tracks, 50,000 photos, or up to four hours of high-definition video on a single 50 GB Blu-ray Disc. Toast's Dynamic Writing feature allows consumers to use a Blu-ray Disc recorder like a giant hard drive by dragging and dropping content directly onto the disc icon on the desktop to add or remove files. Blu-ray burning is also supported by Toast's network sharing utility, ToastAnywhere. An untested option installs a system extension that allows you to read Blu-ray discs in the Finder on G4 and later Macs using OS X 10.4.8 and up.

Conclusion

Overall, Toast is easier to use, seems slightly faster and more interactive along with improvements in the bundled software that make it a worthwhile upgrade. TiVo owners may want to take a serious look at Toast 8 for the ease of use of TiVo Transfer. Although Roxio doesn't promote it on the website, Toast 8 and bundled software, except Motion Pictures HD, are Universal Binary and run natively on Intel Macs. My second article covers the bundled-software features.

Edited by Ilene Hoffman, Reviews Editor

Now AAPL Stock: The symbol you provided ("AAPL") doesn't appear to be registered

Cirrus creates Lightning-headphone dev kit

Apple supplier Cirrus Logic has introduced a MFi-compliant new development kit for companies interested in using Cirrus' chips to create Lightning-based headphones, which -- regardless of whether rumors about Apple dropping the analog headphone jack in its iPhone this fall -- can offer advantages to music-loving iOS device users. The kit mentions some of the advantages of an all-digital headset or headphone connector, including higher-bitrate support, a more customizable experience, and support for power and data transfer into headphone hardware. Several companies already make Lightning headphones, and Apple has supported the concept since June 2014. http://bit.ly/29giiZj

Share

Developer775d

Apple Store app offers Procreate Pocket

The Apple Store app for iPhone, which periodically rewards users with free app gifts, is now offering the iPhone "Pocket" version of drawing app Procreate for those who have the free Apple Store app until July 28. Users who have redeemed the offer by navigating to the "Stores" tab of the app and swiping past the "iPhone Upgrade Program" banner to the "Procreate" banner have noted that only the limited Pocket (iPhone) version of the app is available free, even if the Apple Store app is installed and the offer redeemed on an iPad. The Pocket version currently sells for $3 on the iOS App Store. [32.4MB]

Share

775d

Porsche adds CarPlay to 2017 Panamera

Porsche has added a fifth model of vehicle to its CarPlay-supported lineup, announcing that the 2017 Panamera -- which will arrive in the US in January -- will include Apple's infotainment technology, and be seen on a giant 12.3-inch touchscreen as part of an all-new Porsche Communication Management system. The luxury sedan starts at $99,900 for the 4S model, and scales up to the Panamera Turbo, which sells for $146,900. Other vehicles that currently support CarPlay include the 2016 911 and the 2017 models of Macan, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman. The company did not mention support for Google's corresponding Android Auto in its announcement. http://bit.ly/295ZQ94

Share

Industry775d

Apple employees testing wheelchair features

New features included in the forthcoming watchOS 3 are being tested by Apple retail store employees, including a new activity-tracking feature that has been designed with wheelchair users in mind. The move is slightly unusual in that, while retail employees have previously been used to test pre-release versions of OS X and iOS, this marks the first time they've been included in the otherwise developer-only watchOS betas. The company is said to have gone to great lengths to modify the activity tracker for wheelchair users, including changing the "time to stand" notification to "time to roll" and including two wheelchair-centric workout apps. http://bit.ly/2955JDa

Share

Troubleshooting776d

SanDisk reveals two 256GB microSDXC cards

SanDisk has introduced two 256GB microSDXC cards. Arriving in August for $150, the Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Premium Edition card offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s for reading data. The Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card can read at a fast 100MB/s and write at up to 90MB/s, and will be shipping sometime in the fourth quarter for $200. http://bit.ly/294Q1If

Share

Upgrades/storage776d

Apple's third-quarter results due July 26

Apple has advised it will be issuing its third-quarter results on July 26, with a conference call to answer investor and analyst queries about the earnings set to take place later that day. The stream of the call will go live at 2pm PT (5pm ET) via Apple's investor site, with the results themselves expected to be released roughly 30 minutes before the call commences. Apple's guidance for the quarter put revenue at between $41 billion and $43 billion. http://apple.co/1oi1Pbm

Share

Investor777d

Twitter stickers slowly roll out to users

Twitter has introduced "stickers," allowing users to add extra graphical elements to their photos before uploading them to the micro-blogging service. A library of hundreds of accessories, props, and emoji will be available to use as stickers, which can be resized, rotated, and placed anywhere on the photograph. Images with stickers will also become searchable with viewers able to select a sticker to see how others use the same graphic in their own posts. Twitter advises stickers will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, and will work on both the mobile apps and through the browser. http://bit.ly/29bbwUE